"...Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. (2) Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” Psalms 51:1 – 2
I love Christians who have great prayer lives, I need prayer all the time and am thankful to those who pray for me. We should all have prayer worriers in our life, there is nothing more powerful another Christian can do for you than to pray for you. Your Pastor needs prayer, all pastors need prayers from all their church membership. If you do not pray for your Pastor every day, PLEASE START TODAY! I promise you he prays for you every day and most likely multiple times a day. A prayer worrier is someone who prays a lot, and multiple times a day, fervent in their prayer life. I remember the greatest prayer worrier I ever knew was Sister Mae Hammond, Pastor’s Harace and Charles Hammond’s mother and my grandmother – in law. Sister Mae would pray in a very moment, if she sensed that someone needed prayer, she would stop everything and pray. I can remember many times I would sit with her at her kitchen table and talk to her about things and she would tell me “I prayer about that today, or I have prayer about that a lot” and believe me, if Sister Mae said she prayed she did. I am sure as a young minister; I kept her prayer life continually active. Again, the greatest thing a Christian can do is pray a lot, and please put me and my wife on your prayer list.
However, here we find David praying for himself, David had committed a great sin and he is asking God to forgive him. David is asking God to forgive his sin, “…according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” Oh, how great of a God we indeed have, what mercy and grace our Father has for us, that even when we sin, He will mercifully forgive them over and over. David went on to pray these words in V. 2 “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” David needed a very much forgiveness and our Father will forgive all our sins. No Christian is above sin, and all sin is equally breaking of God’s commandments. “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” James 2:10 Therefore we need our Fathers forgiveness all day every day. While David’s sin was great, all sin is great! David went on in V. 4 to say, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight…” We need to understand, as God’s children our Father see’s us, He knows our every action, but He also knows our every thought. David admitted his sins to God, he did not attempt to hide them, or to act as though he did not do them, he admitted them, and because he did, he knew God would forgive them. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (9) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."1 John 1:8 - 9 Thank you dear Gracious God! David continued in V.8 “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” David was asking God to make His forgiveness real in his heart, because David’s burden was such on him that it would be like “crushing his bones” oh how painful David’s sins were to him. David did not forget to praise God for His glorious and merciful act of kindness of forgiving his iniquity. V. 15 “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.” Folks, when we sin against God it is awful, that such a gracious God who saved us and adopted us as His own children must also watch us sin. But this same gracious God will also mercifully forgive those sins. Please, let us acknowledge our sins to our Father, He already knows about them, do not treat our Father as though our sins are insufficient or irrelevant. Every time we sin against our Father, we ought to all be as good of children as David was.
